


Legends Alone

by Pathdog



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Droid maintenance as emotional coping, F/M, Force Bond, Light Angst, Post TLJ, Rey and Ben were both wrong, alone in a crowd, the problems of being a legend, they miss each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 04:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13287054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pathdog/pseuds/Pathdog
Summary: Following the escape from Crait, Rey tries to connect with the remaining members of the Resistance but finds herself set apart despite her best efforts.





	Legends Alone

**Author's Note:**

> First contribution to the fandom. I have so many feels after the Last Jedi that I need to sort through so I wrote this. I do have a continuation planned for this because they deserve to resolve their shit damn it! But since I have a deadline for a paid writing project I’m not sure when I will be able to get around to doing that. So, I’m posting this bit as a one-shot for now.

It had been months since she had felt him in their bond, since their last brief contact after everything had gone so terribly wrong. She didn’t know what she had thought her reaction to it would be, but when the tangled threads of the Force between them pulled taut once more, Rey only felt an ever-present knot of tension between her shoulder blades suddenly relax.

  
It was early evening on Pelal, the outer-rim moon where the last survivors of the Resistance had fled to lick their wounds and figure where to go from here. Rey was alone in her room, a small pile of scrapped droids and parts on the floor in front of her to salvage what she could. Everyone else was probably in the main dining hall of the old industrial facility they had taken over. Rey didn’t need the Force to know Poe was closeted up at the far end of the one long table with Leia, absentmindedly bringing food to his lips at irregular intervals as they discussed future of the Resistance. Finn and Rose, by contrast, would be found in the thick of the dining melee, trading tales and complaints about the day with the pilots and support staff. The Resistance was at last moving out of shell-shock and into the restless need to be doing something again. The first gritty brush of breeze that heralded the sandstorm to follow.

  
Rey had joined them often enough when they first had settled in on Pelal. The guttered, but still embering, flame burned fiercely in all their hearts. She had been eager to at last be really a part of their fight, their struggle, the cause they all believed in. Rey wanted to know everything about everyone, what they were fighting for and why, trying to build the picture in her mind that she felt Leia surely must see to have such faith. Trying to work out how these disparate parts came together into a foundation that could be built upon once again, and more importantly, how she would fit in. She kept herself as busy as possible, helping out with almost any task put before her whether or not it would turn out to be an area she had any real skill with, happy to contribute however she could.

  
It had been enough, at first.

  
The awareness of it came upon her slowly. Those first desperate days were a mad scramble of terror and grief. There had been no time to think on anything except the next move, the next moment, wondering how close utter ruin was nipping at their heels. Only once they had stopped running, settled into the half-overgrown remnants of the factory, had anyone found time to really process anything. The first few times someone had asked her questions about how the Force could help, Rey hadn’t thought much of it. She’d answered them as best she could, painfully aware of how little she truly knew. There was a kind of fervent zeal in people’s eyes when she hesitantly tried to explain it, and Rey was immediately reminded of the derisive way Luke had spoken the about becoming a legend.

  
But thinking about Luke would only inevitably lead her to thoughts about things she just wasn’t ready to face. Rey brushed it off. She had been sure that in time they would come to see her a just another facet of the effort to rebuild, a single person with skills no more or less valuable than another’s in the overall scope of a Galaxy in need.

  
Poe was friendly enough, but it was obvious that Leia had begun actively grooming him for command and he spent most of his time in meetings with her and the few remain officers. Rey had sought out Finn as soon as the dust had settled from the relocation, eager to hear all about his own journey since she had left. Finn explained everything in a jumbled rush that had taken three or four tellings for Rey to work out the events’ chronological order. He had proudly introduced her to Rose, who had nearly hyperventilated as Rey reached out to shake her hand. Once she had calmed down, Rose had given a much clearer accounting of things than Finn had managed. She and Rey had bonded rather quickly over their shared love of mechanics, and the sense of reverent awe had faded from Rose by the end. It had been almost perfect.

  
Mealtimes was where she had noticed it first. Rey remained steadfastly silent about her time with Luke Skywalker. She had answered what questions she could about the Force, tried to explain that she had not truly trained with him at all, but it never seemed quite enough for them. Inevitably she ran up against questions she could not answer about the Force and questions she _would not_ answer about Luke. She didn’t know how to explain to them, and the sense that they felt that she was something _other_ grew stronger in her mind. She begun to avoid eating with everyone, unable to stand their stares and hushed whispers, keeping up an irregular schedule which only seemed to reinforce the fact that she wasn’t just another member of the crew. There was the vast gulf growing between her and them every day and Rey didn’t know how to bridge it.

  
Finn noticed, of course, but he didn’t understand why Rey wouldn’t talk about where she had been when the questions inevitably came. She wasn’t ready to face it yet. Not the memories of Luke, and certainly not the rest. Rey stopped seeking Finn out, though she never actively tried to avoid him. She just couldn’t bring herself to explain. She didn’t even know where to begin.

  
So, when she again felt that tug across the Force, Rey knew she wasn’t going to turn away. Even if she should.

  
For long moments she just sat there, staring down at the depowered droid she had been rebuilding. She didn’t want to look up; too afraid of what expression she would find on his face and she had no words for the storm in her heart to say to him. Memories of dark, haunted eyes tumbled and crashed in her head, adding more ragged cuts to a wound she couldn’t even bring herself to think about.

  
He was silent too, not even a whisper of fabric betraying some movement on his part. They just breathed together, quietly in sync, unwilling to let go of this rediscovered sense of belonging. It couldn’t last. Rey knew that, bracing herself for the loss, as she felt him draw in a deeper breath to form words.

  
Softly, in the voice used when the speaker half hopes his listener won’t hear, he spoke.

  
_“I was wrong.”_

  
Rey snapped her eyes up to meet his. Privately she had constructed hundred different scenarios of what it would be like if they spoke again. Those words had never factored in.

  
“What?” She asked, her voice just as soft.

  
He appeared to be sitting cross-legged in front of her, on the other side of her salvage scrap. He was dressed as he always was, in night-black fabric from boot to neck, but his eyes were more haunted than she had ever seen them.

  
“I was wrong,” he repeated.

  
He wasn’t looking at her, staring down at his own hands instead, fists clenching and unclenching. Rey licked at her lips, her mouth having gone dry. She wanted so badly to believe that to mean what she wanted it to mean, but she felt she knew rather better by now.

  
“Wrong about what?” She pressed.

  
He turned his head slightly to the side, fixing his gaze on one of the half-reconstructed droids between them. He stretched out a hand over the little spider-like droid.

  
“You can recycle the logic circuits in most lighting panels for these droids, I’m sure you can find some wherever you are.”

  
Rey sighed, tears pricking at her eyes. She couldn’t do this. Seeing him hurt. The jagged wound of her failure bleeding anew, memories of that fleeting perfect connection with him spilling out where she could not help but acknowledge them.

  
“What do you want from me, Ben? I can’t be what you asked of me.”

  
Finally he raised his eyes to her.

  
“I know. I was wrong.”

  
A heartbeat passed, his eyes intent on hers.

  
“I can’t be what you asked either.”

  
This time Rey looked away, choking back a sob.

  
“I know,” she whispered. “Where does that leave us, now?”

  
“Alone?” He asked, his tone almost frightened.

  
Before Rey could even begin to imagine a way to respond to that the threads of Force between them went slack again, and he was gone. Rey buried her face in her hands and wept.

  
_Alone_ , she thought.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this entirely in one emotion-filled go on my phone after my fourth time seeing The Last Jedi (at Disneyland!)


End file.
